How I taught myself to draw and paint
Contrary to popular belief ‘painting’ is not a talent, it’s a skill. Painting is not exclusive to a particular group or people. Like a skill, it can be learned and improved upon over time. I’ve always had an interest in the arts, but I wouldn’t consider myself among the ‘naturally gifted’ and talented. I’m not even sure if there’s such a thing. I could be looking at this wrong, but when I think of “naturally gifted” I think of someone doing something immaculate, with ease; like they don’t even have to try hard, they just got it. Well, I believe the more you practice a thing the easier it comes and the easier it looks. In the case of drawing/painting, you can do it, I can do it, anybody that wants to paint can; and you can learn to do it exceptionally well. Here is how I taught myself to draw/paint.
Tracing
I began teaching myself to draw by tracing cartoons. Looney Tunes was still quite popular in the 90s and as a tweety bird super fan, he was my go to. His head was big, round and he was a relatively simple character. I traced him until I was confident enough to attempt him on my own. Tracing helped me get comfortable with my pencil, and in doing so I learned to trust my markings. Gradually I moved on from tracing characters like tweety bird, and began to explore observational drawing. In the case of painting on canvas, you can’t exactly ‘trace’ but you can practice painting what you see and that’s exactly what I did.
Study
In sixth grade everyone was pretty much obsessed with WWF (World Wrestling Federation), now known as WWE. Thursday night Smackdown, and Monday night RAW made it’s way to classrooms across the country. This one nerdy kid Stephon, use to sneak WWF action figures to school his book bag. He would slam them together, back flip them off the desk, and hurl them off stacked books. He put on quite the show for a audience of sixth graders that were easily distracted. I was drawn to the action and impressed with his collection. One day I gathered the courage to ask Stephon to borrow one of his action figures, I offered him candy for his troubles. It took me about a week to convince him but he eventually agreed to let me borrow an action figure for one day. He handed me some guy I never heard of; I should’ve been grateful but instead I daringly requested “The Rock Dawayne Johnson.”
I went home and studied The Rock. I studied his features, examined his muscles, the shape of his ears, and how his limbs connected. I drew the Rock over and over that night until I captured his likeness. I still remember my mom busting in the room “Girl you better give that boy back his wrestling men, cause I ain’t paying for it.” The Rock would be my first attempt at any type of figure, portrait or observational drawing.
From then on I relied heavily on photo references of celebrities and/or well known characters. I measured my progress by how close I was to capturing the likeness of a person.
Before YouTube I relied heavily on paperback books; that’s how I got my studies in. I saved up Christmas money, and birthday money to buy art books and supplies. My mom was more than happy to spend money on books, so I used that to my advantage. Even today i read art books, watch YouTube, visit art museum, art exhibits and study both artist and their work. I study techniques, materials, color, presentation and pretty much anything that can help me grow.
Paint
Any paint I could get my hands I used. Back then I didn’t know any rules to break them, so I did whatever. I had no agenda, no quota, no pressure I just painted. There was no pressure to be good enough, no worries about messing up; I just did it.
I tried everything I was curious about. Went from pencils to charcoal, from pastels to gouache, then oils to acrylic paint…and I’m still trying new stuff. It took me a while to find a medium and could stick with, but exploration is what creativity is all about.
I didn’t know how to use paint, brushes, or anything until I started. Don’t wait until you’re confident enough, you may never be. If you’ve been contemplating painting/drawing whether as a hobby or profession…..do it! You got nothing to loose and everything to gain in creativity.
